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For Christmas, we surprised the kids with tickets to Universal Studios and Harry Potter World in Orlando
You might compare the screams in the above video to the screams in the video of how loud my daughter screamed when she found out we were going to Disney World. Yup, same daughter :-). Not to be confused with THIS daughter, who didn’t scream so loud and now CAN read
We’re using a Frontier Airlines voucher to pay for (most of) the plane tickets, and using hotel points for lodging, and then using Christmas money for (most of) the cost of tickets. For food, we’ll be staying at a Homewood Suites, which covers us for breakfast as well as several hotel room dinners. It also has a full kitchen (so we won’t even need to bring our rice cooker for some hotel room cooking).
But that still leaves us needing to figure out a way to get around Orlando when we need to (including to and from the airport)
How to solve our transportation needs
Last time that we went to Orlando to go to Disney World, we drove there in our minivan.
(SEE ALSO: My top 5 Disney World tips for a budget traveler)
(SEE ALSO: Hacking Disney World: This is how some people visit Disney for over 50% off)
This has pros and cons. The major con is that driving from our home in Cincinnati takes either 1 long or 2 medium days of driving, which really adds to the time required off of work and school. The major pro of driving is that it lets you pack a ton more things than flying (especially flying an ULCC like Frontier)
Renting a car?
Normally, we’d consider renting a car, though of course our family of 8 can’t just rent ONE car – we have to rent TWO CARS to fit our family of 8.
(SEE ALSO: Why you’re foolish to rent a “standard” car)
Looking at Autoslash we’re looking at about $400 total to rent 2 cars for a week, and that’s not considering gas and tolls (hello, Florida!). Because our hotel is convenient to many of the things that we want to do AND has a free shuttle to Universal Studios, we’re considering just not renting a car and taking Uber everywhere!
Of course we generally would have to take 2 Ubers everywhere TOO, but even so, I’m thinking that we would net out cheaper than renting a car for the whole week.
What do you guys think? Is this crazy? Should we just rent cars instead? Any suggestions for a situation like this?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Rent an 8 passenger mininvan !
Those don’t really exist… at least you can’t guarantee one. For us it’s not worth the risk of showing up to the rental car place and them not having one
We are a family of 12 (6 boys, 4 girls). We have rented full size vans before. It was through Enterprise and only one location of the three or four here locally. So it actually is possible, but you may have to travel an hour or two away. I don’t know about Ohio. We live in Illinois and not near a metro area where maybe demand is less.
Are you visiting Disney World at all this trip? Some people stay their first and last night at a Disney hotel to take advantage of Disney’s Magic Express free airport transportation and luggage handling. Then the rest of the time they can stay offsite.
I guess technically you only have to stay the first night, they don’t check if you are still a guest when you take the bus back.
No – we’ve been to Disney a few times and won’t be going on this trip
My fiancee and I have folding bikes with 20″ wheels that we use for local transportation. We find them to be easy to park, and it helps us reduce the mileage charges when we do have to rent a car.
I don’t know how well this would work with kids at a Disney resort, but there are child trailers and trailer bikes that may be an option for you.